"Give that the entire area of the settlements is only 23% of Judea and Samaria's total area, there is no reason to limit the hundreds of thousands of Jews who live there and have the ability to buy land to allow their children to live near them," Erdan said at a government meeting on Sunday.

"Trump asked us to 'hold back a bit' - and that could have meant two or three days."

At the meeting, Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu spoke about his meeting with Trump and said, "Our friendship with the US has always been strong, and now it is even stronger.

"Our shared perspective is of the opportunities in the Middle East and how we should handle Iran, which we see eye-to-eye on.."